Janet Parfitt – Featured Priestess of Cerridwen

  My name is Janet Parfitt and I am a Priestess of Cerridwen.  I was initiated as a Priestess at Lake Bala in 2018.  I am also a carer for my disabled husband, Gary and cat mother to my cat Merlin.  I have lived in Glastonbury since 2017.  I started the Avalon training in 2014.  Before that I had no experience of being a Priestess.  I never even had the nerve to mention my beliefs to anyone else, less still to work with them.  I dabbled with stuff in my bedroom; lighting candles and saying a few words but that was all. 

   I had always been drawn to astrology and Tarot, but it was reading Marian Green’s book “A Witch Alone” (1991, HarperCollins) that started me on my path.  I was very drawn to Glastonbury and had been coming on day trips for years.  Something about the place tugged at my heart in a way it is hard to explain.  After I started the Avalon training, I met Bee and we kept bumping into each other and became friends.  One evening she messaged me and asked if I would like to help at a Dark Moon Ritual.

   I had no idea what this was or what I was supposed to do but surprisingly I heard myself say “yes” and I loved it!  I had such a great time that I quickly became a regular.  Inevitably, I heard about the Cerridwen training, and I kept thinking to myself “I should do that one day”, but as a Gemini I can be pretty indecisive.  It was in a Dark Moon Ritual that I was standing in circle, and I said to Cerridwen “I will come and train as one of your Priestesses someday.”  She immediately replied, “What are you waiting for?”.  I could not think of an answer, so I contacted Bee and signed up for the training.  Bee was delighted and told me she had been waiting for me to ask.

   I think Cerridwen is always very aware of the things that challenge us.  I had an accident in a swimming pool when I was about thirteen where I slipped and hit my head on the side of the pool.  I remember going under the water and thinking I was going to drown.  Ever since then I have been terrified of wading into water.  When I initiated at Lake Bala it was late in the evening and absolutely pitch dark, with just the moon and stars shining.  Bee waded into the Lake, turned to me, and said, “Come on then.”  I could not see a thing and normally I would have been absolutely terrified, but the strange thing is that night I felt no fear at all.  I felt safe and held, so I just followed Bee into the lake and waded into the water right up to my waist.  If someone had told me beforehand that I would be wading into a lake in the middle of the night I would not have believed them.  Cerridwen taught me that night how to overcome my fear and rise to the challenge by simply knowing that She is always with me holding me safe in Her love.

   As a Priestess I really enjoy writing poetry and communicating with people.  I love doing card readings and offering healing.  I also really enjoy doing sacred listening.  I am a passionate believer in giving everyone space to speak because we all have stories, and we all deserve to be heard.

   Recently, I edited an anthology of poems, entitled “Beloved of my Heart” (2022), to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Glastonbury Goddess Temple which included a lot of poems about Cerridwen.

   I have just become editor of the Cerridwen newsletter. Going forward, I will, one day, write a book about Cerridwen.  This book, which I have been fiddling around with for about three years, is proving to be harder than I thought.  It feels like trying to catch smoke in your hands.  Whenever I try to shape it, it flows away from me.  There have already been a lot of false starts, but I know that one day it will finally be finished.

 

Janet Parfitt – Priestess of Cerridwen

Glastonbury, UK

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Janet Parfitt is a Priestess of the Goddess and a Priestess of Cerridwen.  She has also written three books, is a professional Tarot Reader, a soul healer and a qualified funeral Celebrant.  She is a regular Melissa in the Glastonbury Goddess Temple and with Bee Helygen, takes part in the Dark Moon Rituals at every new moon.